SKOPOS - Internet research / panels



Gift Buying and Gender Research from TNS
16/1/01



According to new research now out on festive gift buying, Santa is more likely to be a woman than a man. This blow to the legend of Santa comes from GiftTrak, a new continuous survey on gift purchasing from Taylor Nelson Sofres.

It may be the headline finding, but the survey of gift buying from last November reveals other nuggets about the British way of generosity and present giving. The findings also show that:


  • Over 40% of GB adults bought at least one gift during last November.
  • An overwhelming 70% of this group bought gifts for Christmas.
  • A small slice (15%) of November’s gifts were bought for birthdays.
  • A smaller slice (10%) were bought purely on impulse.
  • The average spend per gift was £22.55.
  • Men spent a little more than women on average, to the tune of £30.00 per gift versus £19.00.
  • Women bought more presents than men, to the tune of 2.73 gifts in an average week compared to 2.04.


GiftTrak Business Development Manager, David Das added that, "The number one product bought during November was toys and games, accounting for 19 % of all gifts bought. Other top categories included toiletries and cosmetics (8%), children’s clothing (8%) and women’s clothing (7%). Despite the hype about buying over the Internet for Christmas, our data shows that the bricks and mortar stores still account for the majority of gifts bought: Woolworths, Argos and Marks & Spencer were the top three stores. However, the move towards non-food items by the major multiples has paid dividends for Tesco, which accounted for 3% of all gifts bought that month."

GiftTrak, a service from Taylor Nelson Sofres Usage Panels, conducts interviews with a representative sample of 1,000 respondents per week.